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EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

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Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#61

Post by glesica »

dkokelley wrote: post #54
dagrz wrote: post #50

Is it me or does the author of this article, and the abusers of the exploits he writes about, land on the wrong side of both the law and common morality? Surely EA being a "terrible company" has nothing to do with whether it is okay to steal their products? Moreover, just because there was a coding error/oversight, again doesn't mean it is okay to steal their products? If you have a complaint about a company or disco…

Yes this rubs me the wrong way. I think it's analogous to a retail store (say, an Apple store) leaving their front door unlocked overnight. It's possible to go in and take merchandise. After all, it's not your fault they left their front door open. You could even argue that Apple's business practices are morally questionable, so they deserve to be taken advantage of . (I'm not trying to make any statement about Apple…

Not really. It's more like Apple issuing you a coupon for a free iPod Nano, but when you go to checkout with the iPod Nano and a Macbook in your cart, the cashier tells you they're both free.

It may still be unethical, my point is just that there are shades of gray here.

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#62

Post by ntkachov »

dkokelley wrote: post #51

Can this really be considered lost revenue? It's unlikely that all 1,000's of the "free" games were going to be purchased at the current price. You run in to the same questions with piracy. Were the pirates really going to pay if they couldn't pirate? The lost revenue should really only come from customers who would have paid the asking price but managed to get an illegitimate deal, plus whatever support and overhead…

Yes because some (most of the ones worth paying for) of the games require some sort of server. So every new player in a game is not free for EA. Giving away a game means they will lose money on this person if they play online.

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#63

Post by elliottcarlson »

"One, if EA is technically incompetent enough to allow such a severe bug to exist, they won’t have the technical skills to discern who used the promo code more than once."

Not necessarily true - we don't have insight in to how their system is setup; and while it may not be tracking redemption of the codes on that level, it could also be attached to any transactional data that they have in place (for reporting purposes etc).

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#64

Post by sespindola »

glesica wrote: post #61
dkokelley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this rubs me the wrong way. I think it's analogous to a retail store (say, an Apple store) leaving their front door unlocked overnight. It's possible to go in and take merchandise. After all, it's not your fault they left their front door open. You could even argue that Apple's business practices are morally questionable, so they deserve to be taken advantage of . (I'm not trying to make any statement about Apple…

Not really. It's more like Apple issuing you a coupon for a free iPod Nano, but when you go to checkout with the iPod Nano and a Macbook in your cart, the cashier tells you they're both free. It may still be unethical, my point is just that there are shades of gray here.

Except that, in that case, Apple will loose a lot of money from the free hardware. In this case, the only real loss for EA is the bandwidth. Since it would be safe to asume that the downloaders wouldn't have bought a lot of games at the current prices.

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#65

Post by brainfed »

bluedanieru wrote: post #60
brainfed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually pulled most of their top titles off Steam when Origin launched. Mass effect, Dragon Age etc. If you already own them on Steam then they remain in your library but you can't buy them on there anymore.

Dragon Age 1 and Mass Effect 1 & 2 are still available on Steam. Interestingly, they pulled Crysis 2 then a few months later added Crysis 2 Maximum Edition. For Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, I agree with their reasoning. Steam doesn't allow in-app purchases that circumvent their distribution system, and that's a load of crap.

You're right - seems it was just Dragon Age 2 that they pulled. My bad! I thought I was only seeing them because I already owned them.

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#66

Post by batiudrami »

bluedanieru wrote: post #60
brainfed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually pulled most of their top titles off Steam when Origin launched. Mass effect, Dragon Age etc. If you already own them on Steam then they remain in your library but you can't buy them on there anymore.

Dragon Age 1 and Mass Effect 1 & 2 are still available on Steam. Interestingly, they pulled Crysis 2 then a few months later added Crysis 2 Maximum Edition. For Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, I agree with their reasoning. Steam doesn't allow in-app purchases that circumvent their distribution system, and that's a load of crap.

Crysis 2 came back once no more DLC was going to be released - hence 'maximum edition'.

The no in-app purchases which don't cut in Steam was introduced when they began allowing free-to-play games on the service (which are usually monetised by microtransactions, and would be a money-loser for Valve if they didn't make a cut from them). I don't know why Steam can't make an exception for EA titles (or those purchased from the store rather than F2P), but that's the reasoning.

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#67

Post by milfot »

dagrz wrote: post #50

Is it me or does the author of this article, and the abusers of the exploits he writes about, land on the wrong side of both the law and common morality? Surely EA being a "terrible company" has nothing to do with whether it is okay to steal their products? Moreover, just because there was a coding error/oversight, again doesn't mean it is okay to steal their products? If you have a complaint about a company or disco…

I think it is a little more nuanced than simply being 'not okay'. Whether it is 'okay' or 'not okay' is a personal moral decision, which though I might agree with you (for myself), I would not push that morality onto someone else. I would however give a reasoned argument as to why I think it is or is not okay. Ethics are not clear-cut, and ethics do not equal the law.

As dkokelly points out, this cannot be thought of as lost revenue. The vast majority of games taken here would never have been bought otherwise, and it is unlikely that any of these games will be devalued by having a wider audience. So it is spurious to describe this as simply stealing.

EA has a history of disrespecting their customers' privacy, security, payments, and computers, as well as (as the op mentions) questionable ethics. They don't seem to value their customers except as a cash cow to be milked to death. This is a message, an imperfect, impure, but pretty bloody strong retributive message. To draw a long bow, think LA riots.

But still, does that make it okay? I just think each person needs to assess that for themselves. It certainly has a ring of just desserts about it. Speaking for myself, it would depend on my motives. I would put that if the gamers are more interested in getting a positive response from EA than they are in free games, I would suggest they protest by dumping their EA games in an online equivalent of a big bonfire.. 4chan maybe :|

But I would agree that a more ethically clear-cut channel could be actually more effective - but just not because it is more ethically clear-cut. if they really want a positive response from EA, rather than just to protest (or steal), they need to publicly and loudly stop buying EA games.

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#68

Post by dkokelley »

glesica wrote: post #61
dkokelley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this rubs me the wrong way. I think it's analogous to a retail store (say, an Apple store) leaving their front door unlocked overnight. It's possible to go in and take merchandise. After all, it's not your fault they left their front door open. You could even argue that Apple's business practices are morally questionable, so they deserve to be taken advantage of . (I'm not trying to make any statement about Apple…

Not really. It's more like Apple issuing you a coupon for a free iPod Nano, but when you go to checkout with the iPod Nano and a Macbook in your cart, the cashier tells you they're both free. It may still be unethical, my point is just that there are shades of gray here.

I understand your point, but I disagree. There is a marked difference between being told by a cashier that the MacBook is also free, and exploiting bad coupon code mechanics for free products. Primarily, the coupon code users knew that the code was broken (the door was unlocked) and proceded to abuse it.

From my understanding, the coupon recipients knew that the coupon was supposed to only be for a single $20 discount. The only shade of grey in this case (as far as I am aware) is that there may be a user who used the code and unwittingly received a discount applied to multiple products. I believe that the majority of people in this case knew that it was unethical (and possibly illegal) but rationalized it by saying that EA deserved it.

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#69

Post by dkokelley »

sespindola wrote: post #64
glesica wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It's more like Apple issuing you a coupon for a free iPod Nano, but when you go to checkout with the iPod Nano and a Macbook in your cart, the cashier tells you they're both free. It may still be unethical, my point is just that there are shades of gray here.

Except that, in that case, Apple will loose a lot of money from the free hardware. In this case, the only real loss for EA is the bandwidth. Since it would be safe to asume that the downloaders wouldn't have bought a lot of games at the current prices.

Sure, but I don't think that's relevant to the discussion. It's hard to quantify, but there is some set of those downloaders who at some point in the future would probably have bought one of the EA titles they received, so there is some actual lost revenue. I suppose that's their lesson for pushing bad code into production.

But it shouldn't matter. Real loss isn't necessary for it to be a unethical (or worse, a crime).

Re: EA “Gives Away” 1000s Of Free Games Due To No Server-Side Validation

#70

Post by quotemstr »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #28
minimaxir wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CSS is based off of Bootstrap, so everything should be showing correctly on mobile and tablets (I don't have an Android device myself so I can't verify that particular use case). I'll look into it; in the meantime, I enabled zoom for mobile devices.

in the meantime, I enabled zoom for mobile devices. Whoever turned it off in the first place was a bad person, and should feel bad for doing so.

The "bad person" here is whoever decided to let websites turn off mobile zoom. My web browser on my device is mine, dammit, and it'll render websites the way I want. Web site creators have no right to control my user experience.
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